5 Reasons Your Company’s Delivery Time May Have Slowed Down

Customers expect to receive prompt deliveries on orders—few things can lose your business customers faster than delays in service or deliveries. Modern businesses need to keep up with the demand for express shipping that’s efficient and reliable. If you’ve noticed your company’s delivery time falling behind, consider the following areas you may need to improve in:

GPS Problems

Commercial vehicles may often encounter glitches with GPS navigation systems. For example, there are special routes that are generated specifically for trucks that may not be allowed to drive on limited access parkways and other highways with low overpasses and bridges. It’s important for commercial vehicles to receive map updates for their GPS navigation devices. Taking the wrong route can cost a truck hours of valuable time that’s supposed to be used for making deliveries.

Fleet Management

A business may not be able to make deliveries promptly due to an inadequate fleet. For instance, mini vans and pickup trucks might not be suitable to accommodate large freight shipments. A truck with the right type of volume capacity should be selected based on the types of deliveries that are to be made. For local deliveries of small items, it is best to use fuel efficient compact cars, sedans and crossover SUVs that have hybrid technology. For instance, deliveries of food and other small packages can be accomplished in such vehicles.

Shipping Obstacles

Rising prices in shipping costs may be slowing down the deliveries of products by certain businesses. Carriers such as Fedex, USPS and UPS are changing their rates often. A business with a fixed budget may struggle to fulfill orders in time due to fluctuating prices. Sometimes, a business may have to offer slow ground shipping in order to stay within a budget. Additionally, shipping of large items may become so expensive that businesses may eliminate some products from its stores and catalogs.

Payment Processing

An outdated payment processing system may slow down deliveries. Businesses might have to wait for several days to receive funds from a customer before shipping out packages. It’s important for a business to have a modern merchant account that can be used to fulfill orders within one day.

Logistics

A manager may struggle to keep track of all the inventory in a warehouse or store. Some items may be unaccounted for due to careless labeling, sorting and theft. Modern inventory management programs should be used to keep track of all items that are shipped on behalf of a business.

Businesses need to stay on top of all logistical operations involving shipping. Customers deserve to receive their orders in a timely manner as promised when making payments for products.